Dakota G-AMPY

Polished aluminium looks lovely. For a few weeks at least – if the effort of removing heaven knows how many layers of paint and polishing her would be a serious undertaking, the ongoing maintenance would also be quite time consuming.

Another aspect to consider would be the increased vulnerability to corrosion that the lack of paint would leave the aeroplane open to. Ok for California, but not anywhere like England!

Paint it and be damned – I’m not polishing the bugger! For info, SV will be painted as well and not polished.

JC

There are several reasons why the aircraft was painted grey rather than bare metal.

The main reason is that take too long to remove all of the paint and get the metal to a suitable finish. Time is money, and if you want to be charged £150 for a pleasure flight instead of the very reasonable £50 then perhaps Atlantique would consider removing the paint.

Again, due to time constraints, if the staff spent most of their time removinig paint then there wouldn’t be any time left to do the maintenance on the rest of the aircraft, I’m sure you’d all be moaning more if Atlantique had a lovely collection of static aircraft that couldn’t fly!

Another problem, is that looking at black and white photographs of Dakotas its not easy to see if its grey or bare metal, perhaps they just looked outside at their Pembroke that is grey and did it the same?

The aircraft has been painted in these colours purely for their own benefit, not necessarily for film work, but just because they wanted to.

I think its a great looking aircraft, and I hope it will fly for many years to come!

Jon.

there will be an outcry

From one person!

The rest of us will be grateful that it has been restored.

Ever though that grey/silver paint may have better anti corrosion properties? May actually be cheaper that polishing up the fuselage?

Superb job chaps she looks wonderful, I cant wait to see her.

A leak, our paint scheme security has been breached!

Kev.. how on earth did you find out about the secret back-up plan (just in case there was not enough blue paint and masking tape for the Transport Command scheme)?

I was rather keen on this version 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Ah, now I know why we are called ‘plane spotters’ 😀 😀 😀

That’s the baby!! I’ve since found out that the original aircraft crashed – sabotage or air to air missile maybe??

You mean someone smacked it in the gob!

Roger Smith.

Very nice pictures

Silver is supposedly a very expensive colour to have

Albert, if it is any consolation the bare metal engine cowlings are apparently in line for a serious polishing. 🙂

Lovely!! Just another 60% of the airframe to go! 😉

Albert.

Would it be churlish of me to point out the fact that should you offer to pay for the work required to create the level of authenticity you personally aspire to, that the operators might in fact, bite off your hand, as it were?

I think the aircraft looks superb, after all, it’s not as if it’s been painted pink with yellow polka dots.

Regards,

kev35

That just doesn’t make sense!! Removing the paint to reveal a natural metal finish must be far cheaper than paying for the whole thing to be sprayed polyurythene grey! Likewise spraying it lacquered silver can be no more expensive than spraying it grey!! Where is the cost differential?

That’s the baby!! I’ve since found out that the original aircraft crashed – sabotage or air to air missile maybe??

..or maybe this one http://www.pinkskyvan.com

~Momentairily daydreaming about formation flypasts and beer tents~ 😎

Was that the one painted as a pig?

Wow, great paint job, you’ve got to make that one fly!! Isn’t there a paradropping Skyvan with a similar paint job? Imagine a formation fly past over the beer tent!!!!

We mocked it up using green anti corrosion paint – decided that Blobby airways wasn’t a good image!!

JC

A leak, our paint scheme security has been breached!

Kev.. how on earth did you find out about the secret back-up plan (just in case there was not enough blue paint and masking tape for the Transport Command scheme)?

I was rather keen on this version 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

Albert.

Would it be churlish of me to point out the fact that should you offer to pay for the work required to create the level of authenticity you personally aspire to, that the operators might in fact, bite off your hand, as it were?

I think the aircraft looks superb, after all, it’s not as if it’s been painted pink with yellow polka dots.

Regards,

kev35

Albert, if it is any consolation the bare metal engine cowlings are apparently in line for a serious polishing. 🙂

Here we go again. Some one not happy with the colour scheme? Again! But hang on, this happened before with the new Hunter T7 scheme. Did it not?

Oh and just by the way, light aircraft grey was introduced with some TC Daks at the latter end of the types career.

It’s called “authenticity” I believe and the only RAF Dakota that was painted light grey was ‘KG661’/ZA947 in the 1970s which is now with BBMF, but that was with RAE . If you are trying to recreate G-AMPY in RAF Transport Command colours as used during the ’50s then the wings and lower fuselage were natural metal. If the reason G-AMPY has been painted in RAF Transport Command colours is for a film, then for those aviation enthusiasts that know, this would instantly be picked up. If it’s been done pure ‘because we fancied it’, then as a private aircraft you can paint it whatever colour you like of course! The Dakota in the RAF Museum at Cosford (KN645) is currently being repainted in a similar scheme, as it wore during the ’50s and ’60s. If this doesn’t emerge with a polished metal fuselage and wings, or at least sprayed silver, there will be an outcry! Call me ‘picky’ and ‘a nit-picker’ or ‘pedantic’ if you want, but I do like to see historic aircraft accurately restored.

Thanks John. Quite relieved that there will be some control surfaces, seats and a floor fitted for our historic flying experience. 🙂

Couldn’t tell from the pics posted that the ailerons were absent as well.

tc

I think the flying controls may be fitted over the coming weekend (unless Dave has been busy fitting them during the evenings this week). But as far as I know, no ground runs have taken place yet and neither (quite obviously) has the flight testing.

I assume RA will be doing the work this weekend as she has seats. And a Floor. As well as a complete set of uppy downy sidey sidey flappy bits 🙂

You forgot the ailerons Merlin 🙂

JC